


The Dreamer

by xathira



Series: Prince of the Unknown [13]
Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Beast Wirt, Blink and you'll miss it, Other, Prince!Wirt AU, discount astral projection, technically canon don't @ me, the shortest reunion ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21772591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xathira/pseuds/xathira
Summary: It hasn't been all waiting around for Greg on the other side.
Series: Prince of the Unknown [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1516961
Comments: 27
Kudos: 176





	The Dreamer

Wirt and Greg plunge into a lake and enter purgatory on Halloween night in October, 1990-something. The forest they awaken in has settled into its charming, melancholy autumn: trees ablaze in fall colors just like the world they left behind and air redolent with browning leaves, woodsmoke, and spices. The boys are lost long enough for days to shuffle into a week… or two… they lose track of time. 

They lose hope, too. At least, Wirt does. He’s claimed by The Beast first. He doesn’t even realize that Edelwood roots are creeping greedily over his sleeping body when courageous little Greg steps up to save him.

Wirt extinguishes the Dark Lantern and slays The Beast just as winter arrives in the Unknown, suffocating the last of autumn’s warmth. Past the torture of his instantaneous transformation, he instinctively knows where to guide Greg so that his brother—not half-brother this time, just _brother_ —can escape. Greg returns to that same Halloween night mere hours after his body slammed beneath the water’s surface. He’s rushed to the hospital and treated for shock and hypothermia and hypoxia and keeps saying that Wirt will be here, any minute now… Wirt promised to catch up, you see. 

Greg never stops to think if maybe that was a lie.

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

His legs feel like beef jerky and he can’t quite catch his breath, but Greg trudges back up the hill anyway because if he’s not sledding then he is _wasting_ a perfectly good snow day. There will be plenty of time after the sun goes down for him to make some of those hot cocoa packets for himself and Jason Funderburker and think about what he’s going to get Wirt for Christmas.

Giving up is for quitters. Greg’s no quitter. The best hills in the golf course back up to the woods, tall and sloping with grooves that push his sled unpredictably across the sparkly white, and if Greg wants to keep having fun he has to suck it up and walk.

This was easier last year, when Wirt pulled him up the hill. He even pulled Greg part of the way home, until they reached the salted sidewalk and Wirt had to carry the sled under his arm. 

It’s going to be rough trudging home this time. That’s a problem for _post_ -sledding Greg, though.

“On your marks… get set… GO!” As soon as Greg reaches the hill’s crest he takes a running leap head-first onto his neon-orange plastic toboggan—zipping downward with an ice-scratching _shushhh._ The deserted golf course amplifies his ecstatic whoops. His sled veers right—left—right again, nearly throwing him into the powder. 

A teenager’s horrified shouts of “BAIL! BAIL NOW!” are missing at key points during Greg’s wild ride. Greg would have laughingly ignored those commands anyway (suggestions, really) and forced Wirt to roll _both_ of them out of the sled, but there’s a split second in which he wishes his brother could’ve told him the exact right point to abandon ship.

The sled soars over a mogul, hidden seamlessly on the hill’s face by the angle of the sun gleaming off the snow. Greg goes flying. Sky switches places with ground and he hits his head on a hard-packed patch hard enough for a firecracker-flash to bleach his vision.

He lays where he fell. Stunned.

And he realizes with a pleasant soda-pop fizz of wonder that he’s not in the golf course.

Titanic trees, bigger and older than any of the trees by the golf course, criss-cross over the milky sky. Their strong arms carry layers of snow thick as vanilla frosting. Silence hangs in the spaces between the trunks. When Greg gingerly sits up, his head doesn’t hurt. Actually... nothing hurts, despite the fact he knocked himself silly tumbling out of that sled.

“Oh, beans—the sled!”

It’s pretty much impossible to miss the DayGlo toboggan, so it must have totally shot out from under him if Greg fails to immediately find it. A frown upends his mouth. Dad won’t be happy if he returns home empty-handed… so he stands and starts moving, calling for the sled as if it’s a lost dog. 

“Sleddy, here boy! Sledster Five-Thousand! Sleddy-sled!” There’s something strange about his voice; it doesn’t echo back at Greg no matter how loud he tries to yell. He thinks it’s sort of like those dreams he has when his chest feels stuffed with cotton, the air pressing heavy and dense all around him. Is he dreaming? _Huh…_ that would explain the boy’s lack of bruises, the transition from open hills to dark, hushed woods. Greg hopes that the sled is around here somewhere. He also hopes he can make it back to the golf course before the sun gets too low and he misses the rest of his snow day. 

" _Greg… wait… I’m coming…_ " 

Only a few minutes into his trek, and Greg snags one of his mittens on a bush. He’s sticking his tongue out, trying to untangle the yarn that ties both mittens together so they don’t get lost, when he hears his own name murmured quietly into the stillness. “Hello? Thomas Sleddison?”

He worries maybe whoever spoke didn’t hear him, what with his words all muffled and faint, but then it reaches him, clearer this time: “ _...Wait for me._ ”

Greg doesn’t forget his Sleddy but he’s one-thousand percent more interested in whoever is calling out to him. He _knows_ that voice, even if he hasn’t heard it ordering him to “get out of my room” or sighing “stop, Greg” since Halloween. His heart is a balloon inside his chest, fit to pop, and Greg mills his arms and pushes his legs to wade faster through the syrup-thickness that clogs his ears. 

He scrabbles over a snow-blanketed log wider than he is tall; he skirts around a winding path pressed narrowly between a copse of slender trees, stepping over the tracks of traveling deer. Greg still catches snippets of muttering now and again, but the familiar voice gets torn up by angry-dog sounds. Just before he breaks into a clearing presided over by a herculean chestnut tree, Greg swipes up a decently sized stick and brandishes it like a sword. “Stay back, doggy!” he commands. “Sir Gregory Candypants is here to save the… Wirt?”

There’s no dog. There are a few rabbits, and a doe, and some birds, yet they dash into the shadows at Greg’s aggressive display. All that’s left are him… and his big brother, wrapped up in his old Halloween cloak and nestled between the chestnut’s protruding roots.

“I’ll be…right there, Greg,” Wirt mumbles into the crook of his elbow. He grits his teeth, face contorting hideously, and that awful growling that Greg mistook for an irritated canine vibrates through the air. Branches twist from either of Wirt’s temples like the antlers on Old Lady Daniel’s lawn-ornament stags. And his hands… 

Aren’t hands. Those are certified, genuine monster-claws, fashioned from ink-stained wood and as long and as pokey as Grandma’s knitting needles. Greg is simultaneously terrified and extremely jealous.

He drops the stick he’d been holding (there’s no way it would stand up to Wirt’s much better stick-hands) and creeps closer to his sleeping brother. Wirt doesn’t appreciate it when Greg practices his sneak attacks while Wirt is resting, but since this isn’t Wirt’s bedroom, Greg determines that the rules don’t apply. “Wirt? What’re you still doing here?” His boots stop just a foot away from Wirt’s curled-up body. A feeling he cannot name swells huge and aching in his chest… he might cry, but he’s so _happy_ to see Wirt, so how does that make any sense?

Another German Shepherd snarl works its way from Wirt’s throat. Greg’s heart skips and he thinks that must be fear— only if he were truly afraid, he probably wouldn’t want to kneel down like he’s doing right now to peer closer at Wirt’s grimacing visage. Despite the antlers, despite the branchlike claws and the wolfish noises… that’s Wirt’s face. The overlarge nose and thick brows. The mop of brown hair that flops over his forehead. And when Wirt’s lids flutter open—for the quickest blink, a second if that—Greg sees a sliver of the blue glow that’s haunted his dreams, the blue glow he looked for when they pulled him from the lake. 

“Wirt,” Greg whispers. His voice creaks like a seesaw. “Can we go home now?”

His hand inches toward Wirt’s shoulder. He just needs to touch him… to make sure this is real…

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

“Greg? _Gregory?!_ ”

Someone jostles Greg as if they’re trying to shake loose change from his pockets. When Greg only mumbles, lips hardly moving and body limper than a sack of flour, the someone pinches his cheek like an angry crab. The zing of pain needles into his dream. He reactively slaps the mean, pinching fingers away, and winces out a soft “ _Ow._ ” 

“Are you with me, buddy?” The person bothering Greg apparently can’t make up her mind on what to do; she switches from bullying him to hugging him close, rubbing his back like a mother cat lapping at a kitten to warm it up. “Come on, Greg. Rise and shine, huh?”

“Sara…?” 

This sure is Sara’s bright yellow coat that Greg’s face is mashed into. He yawns and treats her to a drowsy little-kid smile when she releases him just enough for him inhale a proper breath. 

“What were you doing falling asleep outside? It’s not safe when it’s this cold out.” Sara’s palm warms Greg’s face as she inspects him; she wears pretty much the same worried-sad-scared expression that she’s carried since taking over the very prestigious position of walking Greg to school every morning. Greg wishes Sara would smile more. He’s teased her that her face will stick like that, and then she’ll look like Wirt, but she didn’t take that joke very well the first time. “How’d you get that nasty bump on your head, dude? Are you dizzy?”

“Naw, I’m not dizzy, I was just…” Monolithic trees. A monstrous boy with antlers. No, not a boy, _Wirt—_

“Come on, I’ll take you back home.”

Sara stands up and offers her gloved hand for Greg to hold on to. The kid rubs the sore spot just off the center of his brow and chews the inside of his cheek. What had he been dreaming about? It seemed important. “Aww… Do I _hafta?_ I think I’ve got at least three more hills in me after that good, good rest. Whaddya say, Sara-the-Bee?” 

“Not today, Greg. Let’s leave. Your mom will worry.” There is is: the Zombie Voice. Sara’s words flatline and she won’t look directly at his face, her sable eyes skating toward the snow beneath her boots. Greg has heard the Zombie Voice enough from Sara and his mom and dad to know that it’s not worth pushing it. The next step is Snapping, and then A Lot of Tears, and he’ll feel super guilty if he makes Sara cry.

The sun hangs a bit lower in the sky, still prime sledding light. Greg exhales wistfully. “All right.” 

Sara’s holding the lead of his sled in her opposite hand; she gives their joined fingers a squeeze, and frowns. “What happened to your mittens?”

“Huh?” He blinks down at his uncovered palms. “I snagged ‘em on a bush.”

“What bush?” Sara squints at the pristine, ivory-glistening golf course, at the gouged snow where Greg fell, and shrugs, expression impossibly tired. “You know what? I’ll find you some new ones. Let’s go little man.”

There’s supposed to be a third shadow stretching behind them as they travel back to Greg’s house. It’s much too quiet… and that’s a change that Greg hasn’t acclimated to, although it’s too quiet every day. Before Sara can escape down the porch steps, head down and thoughts far away, Greg calls out to her from the threshold. “Hey, Sara?”

She pushes the heel of her hand blearly over one eye. “Uh-huh?”

“If someone turns into a monster, are they still the same person?”

That throws her for a loop. Sara rubs her face again, angling her body to better face him on the stoop. “I mean… I’m not sure what… maybe. Why not?”

Greg nods affirmatively. “Thanks, Sara-the-Bee.” 

She huffs and starts to ask if he wants some ice for the goose-egg on his head, but Greg closes the door on and begins the arduous process of peeling off his winter layers, placing his boots neatly on the boot tray and tossing his coat somewhere for later. 

Jason Funderburker waits for him in his room. The stately bullfrog is curled up comfortably in his tank and gurgles out a greeting when Greg clambers up into his bed. There are a couple articles tucked into his nest that aren’t strictly _his:_ an olive-green sweater several sizes too big is being used as a pillow case; there’s a cassette tape somewhere in the sheets that Greg hasn’t thrown out yet, no matter how much it pokes him in his sleep; he burrows under a quilt that’s supposed to be at the foot of Wirt’s bed, but his mom hasn’t noticed yet… or, if she has, she doesn’t mind that Greg is only borrowing it for now.

Keeping it warm. For the day Wirt catches up.

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

Dreams of the Unknown aren’t uncommon for Greg. He’s slept through plenty a night returning to frog-carrying ferries and secret gardens, mishmashed scenes of an autumn forest with Wirt and the bluebird Beatrice. They’re innocent dreams, the majority of the time, and Greg can’t remember them all that clearly when he wakes up.

That’s how he knows that the dream of finding Wirt—beastly Wirt, with thorny antlers and raking talons—wasn’t a dream at all. He doesn’t forget that deep growling or those flickering propane-blue eyes the following day when he has to go to school… or the next day. All Greg can think about is how he’s going to go _back_ to the Unknown and take Wirt home with him.

He concentrates as hard as he can before bed every night. He pulls up Wirt’s quilt to his face and inhales, surrounding himself in Wirt-ness, as if that will help him find his brother easier. It’s frustrating when he falls asleep and dreams about dragons or underwater cities or leading a band, instead of rescuing Wirt, but giving up is for quitters, and Greg’s no quitter. Imagine what a great surprise it would be if Wirt came home in time for Christmas! Or New Years! Or tomorrow! And Greg bets nobody will even mind that Wirt looks so different now… the people who love you see who you are on the inside, and it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

Sara had to be right: just because someone turns into a monster doesn’t mean they’re not themselves anymore. 

It requires practice for Greg to dream himself where he wants to be. It's sort of like jumping through a hoop: success requires timing, precision, and dumb luck. He should feel happy the first night he manages to reappear next to his older sibling. But it doesn’t happen like how Greg wants it to happen.

Wirt is crying, harder than he’s ever, _ever_ let Greg see him cry. Harder than Greg thought was possible. Great, irregular hiccups bounce Wirt’s bony shoulders, and he’s got snot oozing from his nose and tears pouring from his yellow-traffic-light eyes, and his head is thrown back as if his antlers weigh too much for his head. Wet, black spots splash the back of his cloak… the front of his shirt… it reminds Greg of when Wirt bit through one of his pens and the ink exploded all over him. Is that what’s going on? 

“It’s just ink, Wirt,” Greg starts uncertainly, so nervous his trapped-bird heart thrums. His voice sounds wrong again; he might as well be speaking with his mouth pressed against a pane of glass. He doesn’t like how dark it is. Wirt’s eyes just make everything spookier, like a flashlight beaming into someone’s face while they intone a ghost story. It’s distressing when people older than Greg are so upset… he waits for Wirt to shush him, to growl about being left alone, yet his big brother shows no sign that he knows Greg is there at all. “Are you okay? Do you need a hug?”

A high wail, raw with grief, peels from Wirt’s wide-open mouth and scrapes Greg in the chest. His lower lip wobbles and he reaches—

And he’s in his own bed, clinging tightly to his pillow, Jason squatting next to him to keep him warm. 

Greg doesn’t want to wake Mom and Dad. He whimpers under his covers and sheds the first tears he’s had since he came out of the lake alone.

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

The dreams with Wirt in them are good, because Greg can see that Wirt isn’t dead like his parents think, but the dreams are also sad because Wirt is sad. Painfully, lonesomely sad. And Greg cannot figure out how to cheer him up.

Greg has tried to speak to Wirt in his dreams. No luck: everything is distorted, flattened, like mumbling into a fishbowl. Any attempt at physical interaction is akin to pushing against cellophane… a translucent membrane that stretches at Greg’s persistent pokes and prods but which stubbornly refuses to break until the dream ends. This isn’t at _all_ similar to how his first escapade into the Unknown went. Why are the rules different? What’s changed? What is Greg doing wrong?

Shouldn’t it be enough that he really, _really_ wants his brother back?

Well—practice makes perfect. And Greg is getting a lot of practice. He succeeds in dreaming himself into the Unknown maybe twice a month, and it usually takes some doing to track Wirt down, but it lifts his spirits when he dreams that Wirt has found a huge family to stay with while he waits for Greg to rescue him. Wirt doesn’t look so depressed anymore. He’s still got the antlers and the skeletal claws and goat-hooves, but otherwise Greg would know him anywhere. 

After his fifth or so secret visit, Greg can’t hold his secret any longer. It’s bursting at the seams, news that’s so good he _has_ to share it. 

“Wirt’s not dead,” he blurts out into the taut silence of the dinner table. Silverware scratches to a stop on plates that have been barely touched. Nobody looks at the gap where an empty seat lurked like an unwanted guest until recently, a gap which used to be _Wirt’s_ spot. Greg, encouraged by the focus swiveled entirely on him, continues excitedly. “That’s no rock fact! I’ve been visiting him and I’m going to bring him back home—”

A sharp sting at his cheek dries the words up. It doesn’t hurt that bad—hardly even leaves a mark—but the shock makes Greg sit bolt upright in his chair, stunned and staring at his mom who’s also staring at him, her mouth popped open around a tiny moan. She clutches her offending hand to her chest, eyes watering.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she whispers. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

Mom picks up her napkin and presses it hard to her face, quaking slightly, and Dad engulfs one of Greg’s unmoving hands in one of his. “You know what we talked about, buddy.” His tone is warm and deep and comforting. “It’s not healthy for us to—”

“But he’s _not_ dead!” Greg suddenly shouts. The eagerness that spurred him to speak warps into frustration, into _anger,_ and it’s an awful boiling sick-making feeling that makes his face hot and his stomach cramp. He starts crying before he can yell again, glaring between his weeping mother and his not-listening father, ignoring Jason pressing against his knee from under the table, throwing an explosive tantrum the likes of which his family has not endured before—because this is _Greg,_ after all. “Wirt’s not dead, why do you keep saying that? Why don’t you believe me?”

“Greg,” Dad murmurs no less gently, but there’s a firmness there, not to be trifled with. “Let’s take a break.”

“I don’t want to,” Greg responds tearfully, though he allows Dad to guide him off his chair and toward his bedroom, where Dad sits him on his bed and sits himself down on Greg’s beanbag chair. It’s a sign of how upset Greg is that the sight of his father sinking almost to the floor doesn’t prompt so much as a smile. 

Jason Funderburker hops up so Greg can squeeze him. For a while Greg is sullenly tight-lipped, glowering at the carpet. 

Then Dad blows out a long weary sigh, and tells Greg a secret: “Mom and I… we know you’re not lying, bud. We know that you think… we know that you see Wirt, sometimes.”

Greg of course demands to know why they’ve been keeping this from him, _a veritable conspiracy,_ why everybody acts like he’s crazy when he brings up Wirt’s name, why he’s hushed when he wants to discuss Wirt and his whereabouts, if they knew all along that Greg was telling the truth. Dad pats him on the knee, still looking terribly sad.

He and Mom seem to think that Wirt is somewhere waiting for them all... which isn’t entirely wrong. The part that has Greg wrinkling his forehead in skeptical confusion is that his parents are convinced that Wirt _can’t ever come back._ They’ll have to be patient, Dad says, and one day when it’s time they’ll be together again. Until then… “Let’s give Wirt a break too, all right pal? He wouldn’t want us making each other depressed.”

“Okay,” Greg graciously concedes. 

He’s going to prove his parents wrong, though. Wirt is not waiting in some mystical heaven-jail for his family—he’s in the Unknown, where Greg left him, obviously lost because Greg’s not there to lead the way. And the next time Greg goes visiting… _that_ will be when he figures out how to move through the barrier that separates him from his brother, and return Wirt to where he belongs. If Greg made it back home, then of course Wirt can, too.

Of _course_ he can.

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

The next window for visitation arrives in March, when frost still shimmers on the lawn in the morning and rain fills puddles on the sidewalks and storm gutters. To his credit, Greg has done an outstanding job of giving Wirt a break in the household; he hasn’t mentioned his older sibling once since Dad’s talk, but Wirt has waited long enough.

On a night shaken by thunderstorms, Greg nestles in bed and closes his eyes and concentrates like he’s been practicing for weeks and weeks. This is the night—he _feels_ it. His breathing slows. He falls asleep.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s as if time has rewound itself. The sun has just started setting over a waving green field, candying the clouds; the air is sugar-sweet with the perfume of blooming flowers; an old, grand forest surrounds him, spring leaves emerald green between colorful buds; a small waterfall plashes somewhere to his left, beyond the trees, feeding a river that burbles its way toward a cute little mill-house. Greg beams, proud he was able to get himself here on the first try. It’d be nice if he knew exactly _how_ and _why_ it worked this time… but that’s a question for _post-_ visit Greg. 

The true test this time will be successfully grabbing Wirt’s attention—

A pure-shade form erupts from the earth _right under_ Greg, force exploding upward in a spray of shadow and dirt. Talons tackle him off his feet. Someone is hoisting Greg into the air, legs dangling uselessly under him, and the sun’s still burning the horizon but its dying rays are not even _half_ as bright as the swirling multihued portals boring into him, horrifying lights that remind him of a cruel trickster demon with a voice like a cartoon villain. Greg’s frozen with shock. Claws dig into his sides and his ears ring with the vile centipede-skittering of the creature’s words—

A creature that knows his name.

“Wirt?” he says to the creature. It falls silent and closes its eyes, becoming nothing more than a shadow puppet. When it opens them again, the darkness whisks from its body, and there’s Wirt. Forlorn, panicking Wirt, who’s shaking as if chilled despite the fact it’s a rather pleasant spring evening. 

“What are you doing here?” Wirt repeats more urgently. He lowers Greg to the grass, biting his lip. “I… I sent you home. You’re not s-supposed to b-be here… it’s too dangerous…”  


Greg throws his arms around Wirt’s middle and squeezes with everything he has. Absolutely everything. It's a hug to crush air from Wirt's lungs and to crack his back like popcorn. It's a long inhalation of Wirt's big-brother smell, familiar under the dankness of mud and growing green things and flower petals. Face pushed against Wirt’s chest, Greg muffles out what he’s been waiting to say since that first night back home without a sibling, what he’s wanted to tell Wirt for months upon months, after every empty holiday. 

“I missed you, Brother O’ Mine.” 

He feels Wirt’s lungs hitch within his embrace. Then wooden arms are encircling his smaller body, Wirt’s chin tucking protectively over Greg’s head, and Wirt gasps out a sound that is equally broken and relieved. 

“Missed you too,” Wirt sobs. “So much, Greg. _So damn much…_ ”

The brothers hold one another for a good long while. Long enough that the green fields fade to blue-grey in the darkness, and Greg’s arms feel kinda sore from crushing Wirt but he’s not quite ready to let go yet. At last Wirt murmurs something into Greg’s hair and breaks the hug, pushing softly back with his claws on Greg’s shoulders and sooty tears smudging his face. 

“How’d you get here?” Wirt begins, voice rough—but Greg can’t answer, because all of a sudden he’s laughing too hard to speak. “Wh-what’s so funny?”

Greg falls helplessly against his brother, whooping shamelessly. “Ha—Your antlers! You— _ha-ha!_ —you look like a princess!”

Wirt bristles self-consciously and reaches up to fondle the branches spearing from his head. “What—what the _heck?!_ ” His claws brush a bouquet of small, flawlessly formed flowers unfurling across every pointed tine. The largest is hardly wider than a silver dollar, pale petals curling like that of a water lily or lotus. It’s impossible to tell what color they are in the moonlight, but Greg will absolutely _die_ if any of them are pink. 

And that’s not all! Though they’re kneeling amidst a homogenous field of grain, where the brothers actually sit is overflowing with new blossoms—daisies and irises and bluebells, primroses and peonies, tulips and hyacinth. They’re practically _buried_ in flowers, and Greg wonders how they didn’t notice that sooner. He peers around at the beautiful bounty, wondering if any of the blooms match those crowning Wirt, while Wirt dithers.

“Would’ja lookit that, it’s a springtime miracle.” Greg stands and props his hands on his hips, grinning. “Flowers sure are pretty— _hey,_ you know what? You could take your antler-flowers to Sara when we go back home—”

“Greg.” An odd expression eclipses Wirt’s face. His blue, blue eyes blaze off to a spot over Greg’s shoulder, toward the forest. Slowly, warily, he stands up, way taller than he used to be on those bizarre reindeer hooves. Tension locks his lanky frame. “I need to take you inside. Righ̫͛ṭ̓ ̘͝n̬̽o̰͘w̥͗.̦̐”

“Wirt? Why’d your voice do the creepy thing again?” Greg turns his neck to see what Wirt’s staring at, but all he catches is a snapshot of two bright stars glinting above the woods before Wirt hauls him onto his back and starts sprinting toward the mill. 

This would be the fastest, funnest piggyback ride ever if Wirt kept running instead of skidding to a halt by the back door, shouting for help. A woman about Mom’s age opens up—flanked by a bunch of worried red-haired kids, all faces Greg has seen at least once in his dreams—and Wirt slides Greg unceremoniously to the ground, shoving him forward so quickly that Greg nearly trips over his own feet. “Th-this is my brother, Greg,” Wirt rambles. His words string together in a runaway train about to screech off the tracks. “You have t-to take him, kee͔͝p̖̍ ͙͑h͎́i̦͘m̛̤ ̜̎š̹ã̞f̤͐ẹ͗ ̂͜i͍ṇ̍side, d-don’t let me in, okay? Whatever you do—even if I-I-I’m screaming, o̹̿r̼̐ ̮ṛ͂o̯͗ā͜r̫̋î̗n̠̈́g͓̊, or whatever—keep him s-safe—”

A girl in a dressing gown that Greg knows is Beatrice pushes forward from the throng and scoops Greg up like an unruly puppy. Without so much as a nod at Wirt, she pivots back into the house and slams the door behind her, holding up one hand to stave off the abrupt barrage of questions bludgeoning her head. “Do as he says,” Beatrice yells like a drill sergeant. “Wirt’s not kidding. We need to watch Greg and nobody can open the door—Greg, _stop!_ ” 

But Greg has already slunk under her arm to throw himself at the doorknob. He flings the door wide, confused and scared… 

Wirt isn’t there. It’s just the green field and the night sky and the forest, slumbering peacefully, as if Greg had made Wirt up in his head. 

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus Tracks: "You Found Me" by The Fray; "If I Could Talk To A Younger Me" by Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn


End file.
